Xenophon, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The book begins with a puzzle. Herds follow their keepers and take no thought of rebellion, while men combine against nothing so readily as against the man who tries to rule them, so that it seemed easier to govern any creature than to govern one's fellow-man.1 Cyrus overturned that judgment. Thousands of men, cities and tribes without number, obeyed him, some from so far off that they had never seen his face, and they obeyed willingly.2
So the question the book sets is whether ruling men is an impossible task or only a difficult one, provided one goes about it in the right way. The rest is the answer, and in that sense it is a handbook. What the answer comes to is plain. Terror alone does not account for it. Cyrus so inspired his subjects with a desire to please him that all they asked was to be guided by his judgment.3
In book eight he teaches by example. He shows himself more assiduous in the service of the gods the higher his fortunes rise. He makes plain that he will do no wrong to friend or ally, and that he will never say or do a shameful thing before any man or woman, because men reverence the modest and not the shameless. He honours prompt and frank obedience above showier virtues that are harder to attain.4
He holds that the good ruler is a living law with eyes that see, able to guide and also to detect the offender and chastise him.5 His own men understood this. Chrysantas tells them that a free man differs from a slave in giving of his own will what he sees to be best, and that Cyrus will never set them to any service that serves his good and not theirs, since their needs and their enemies are the same.6
Now the last chapter. I wrote that the empire, governed by the mind of one man who cared for his subjects as a father, was the greatest in Asia, and that no sooner was he dead than his sons quarrelled, cities and nations revolted, and all things began to decay.7 I began with their impiety: the Persians who once kept their oaths even to the worst of criminals have become perjurers, and the Hellenic generals who marched up with the younger Cyrus paid for trusting an old reputation that the Persians no longer deserved.8
Does that unmake the book? I say it completes it. The whole teaching is that obedience is won by a ruler's character and example: his piety, his fairness, his modesty, his own labour. Remove the man and the cause is gone, and the effect goes with it. The epilogue shows what the book claimed, that this rule rested on one man's virtue and not on a law that could outlive him.
A book that praised Cyrus and hid what followed him would have been a flattery. One that sets the decay beside the glory tells a young commander what he is actually building, and whether it will hold when he is gone. You do not rule well so that men will love you. You rule well so that they will have learned, while you lived, to be good without you. Cyrus did not manage that, and I say so.
Men obey a ruler willingly when they see that he knows better than they do and that he makes it their advantage to follow him: the good general cares for his men as a shepherd for his flock, the good king rewards the best openly so that all compete to be best, and the ruler who is loved has a bodyguard in every subject.910 Cyrus did this, and it is the most admirable thing a man has done.
When he died his sons quarrelled and the Persians fell into luxury, impiety and cowardice, and that too is written, because the virtue of a rule that depends on one man dies with him.1112
If, then, we were to believe the evidence of our senses, was it not obvious that flocks and herds were more ready to obey their keepers than men their rulers?Cyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus
Cyrus, we know, found the readiest obedience in his subjects, though some of them dwelt at a distance which it would take days and months to traverse, and among them were men who had never set eyes on himCyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus
he was able, at the same time, to inspire them all with so deep a desire to please him and win his favour that all they asked was to be guided by his judgment and his alone.Cyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus
his people, he thought, would learn to obey if it were plain that he honoured frank and prompt obedience even above virtues that made a grander show and were harder to attain.Cyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus
he held that the good ruler is a living law with eyes that see, inasmuch as he is competent to guide and also to detect the sinner and chastise him.Cyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus
a slave renders unwilling service to his lord, but we, if we claim to be freemen, must do of our own free will that which we see to be the best.Cyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus
But no sooner was he dead than his sons were at strife, cities and nations revolted, and all things began to decay.Cyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus
In the early days, I am aware, the king and those beneath him never failed to keep the oaths they had sworn and fulfil the promises they had given, even to the worst of criminals.Cyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus
Cyrus, we know, found the readiest obedience in his subjects, though some of them dwelt at a distance which it would take days and months to traverse, and among them were men who had never set eyes on him, and for the matter of that could never hope to do so, and yet they were willing to obey him.Cyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus
Generals, and subalterns alike, came to him from across the seas, not merely to make money, but because they saw that loyalty to Cyrus was a more profitable investment than so many pounds a month. Let any man whatsoever render him willing service, such enthusiasm was sure to win its reward. And so Cyrus could always command the service of the best assistants, it was said, whatever the work might be.Anabasis
EPILOGUE [C.8] Of all the powers in Asia, the kingdom of Cyrus showed itself to be the greatest and most glorious. On the east it was bounded by the Red Sea, on the north by the Euxine, on the west by Cyprus and Egypt, and on the south by Ethiopia.Cyropaedia, The Education of Cyrus
It was then that Cyrus, in apprehension lest the king might get round to the rear and cut to pieces the Hellenic body, charged to meet him. Attacking with his six hundred, he mastered the line of troops in front of the king, and put to flight the six thousand, cutting down, as is said, with his own hand their general, Artagerses.Anabasis
The founding text of the mirror-of-princes tradition and the one Machiavelli read most; modern readers divide over whether the epilogue is a confession, an irony or an addition.